Forum Support Tommy T. Posted February 11, 2020 Forum Support Posted February 11, 2020 4 hours ago, Marvin Boggs said: I tend to think humanity will always find ways to be more productive. You are quite right. Look at the advances that have been made in food production in recent years through fertilization techniques, cloning of species and plants, scientific gene modifications.... So these just permit and encourage more reproduction and more people. Personally, I think that population control methods should be considered now or very soon... and they should be made mandatory (yes, I know that now I sound like a Nazi... but I don't mean it in that way). Take a look around and the poorest people, in general, seem to have the biggest families? If population control is not addressed soon, then the apocalypse will likely occur just due to over population. I will be long dead by then but the kids and grandkids of some of you may be around to suffer that... Again... just my opinion... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Boggs Posted February 11, 2020 Author Posted February 11, 2020 33 minutes ago, Tommy T. said: You are quite right. Look at the advances that have been made in food production in recent years through fertilization techniques, cloning of species and plants, scientific gene modifications.... So these just permit and encourage more reproduction and more people. Personally, I think that population control methods should be considered now or very soon... and they should be made mandatory (yes, I know that now I sound like a Nazi... but I don't mean it in that way). Take a look around and the poorest people, in general, seem to have the biggest families? If population control is not addressed soon, then the apocalypse will likely occur just due to over population. I will be long dead by then but the kids and grandkids of some of you may be around to suffer that... Again... just my opinion... Not to sound crazy, but a case could be made that population control is already happening. Look at the reduction in fertility rates among western populations, the chemicals we ingest, the rising number of epidemics we are already discussing, the increasing number of deaths by conflict. Maybe the Nazi's tried it their way the first time, and their successors are trying out some new techniques this time? Well I don't know the answer to the population boom in poor countries, except to educate. I am NOT a proponent of the idea that espouses "we have limited resource, and must divide the pie by the number of people." My philosophy is there is unlimited resource and opportunity, if we put our minds and efforts to it. There are always asteroids and other planets, but I think we are not even close to managing Earth's resources in the most efficient way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 18 hours ago, GeoffH said: Without getting into specifics I would like to suggest an analogy. A farmer will have land, that land will have a certain carrying capacity for a particular stock or certain growing ability for a particular crop. If the farmer over grazes or over crops that land (without regenerating it with fertalizer etc) between seasons then eventually the quality and number of the animals or plants will start to drop, average size will decrease and disease will become more common. Now the Earth isn't just one piece of land, it's all the land but the principle of over stocking and over use still applies in my opinion. At some point there will be too many people in some areas for standards of living to be maintained in the long term because the density of people will be such that they're using more resources than the land they're living from can sustainably produce (which just means produce in the long term without an eventual decrease in production not something lefty greenie). I'm channeling my farmer heritage here not a city greenie. It has been suggested by people with a lot more knowledge than me that the Earth reached it's sustainable carrying capacity some time between 1960 and 1980. Now if that is so then it would logically follow that at least some of the issues we're seeing now (larger waste dumps, decreasing fish and crop yields, increasing disease, more manmade CO2 etc etc) are only the logical consequence of 'too many people' (in at least some areas). India and China come to mind in particular. Of course we can't just reduce population, we're evolved to breed and increase but at some point that's going to come to a grinding halt, one way or another and I doubt it will be pleasant when it does. But I expect I'll be dead before then so there's that... Just my 2 cents. I can certainly buy into your theory, Geoff. Much more than the "there's something going on but I don't know what or why" that has prevailed a little. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum Support Tommy T. Posted February 11, 2020 Forum Support Posted February 11, 2020 (edited) 49 minutes ago, Marvin Boggs said: Well I don't know the answer to the population boom in poor countries, except to educate. I am NOT a proponent of the idea that espouses "we have limited resource, and must divide the pie by the number of people." My philosophy is there is unlimited resource and opportunity, if we put our minds and efforts to it. There are always asteroids and other planets, but I think we are not even close to managing Earth's resources in the most efficient way. Sorry, Marvin, but I cannot buy into your argument about unlimited resources and opportunity. However I also don't have THE answer - if there is such a thing - regarding population boom. Maybe provide universal cable TV to everyone to entertain them instead of enjoying themselves with sex? But I agree with your comment that humans are not managing Earth's resources responsibly. I seriously believe that poor people having 8, 10, 12 kids or more is equally not responsible. However... what else will they do? Fijians view big families as their version of Social Security... I cannot argue with that exactly. But they also can barely feed and support all those kids. I also believe that some form of population control - especially among the poorest people is really necessary...rightly or wrongly... Edited February 11, 2020 by Tommy T. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 4 hours ago, Tommy T. said: I also believe that some form of population control - especially among the poorest people is really necessary...rightly or wrongly... Are you suggesting something akin to what took place in China at the end of the 1970s? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum Support Tommy T. Posted February 11, 2020 Forum Support Posted February 11, 2020 5 minutes ago, hk blues said: Are you suggesting something akin to what took place in China at the end of the 1970s? Not at all... something a bit more humane and reasonable. But I really don't have the answer... I just think uncontrolled population growth - especially among the poverty stricken - is self defeating. So maybe we all just let them go as they self destruct from hunger and disease... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earthdome Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 9 hours ago, Tommy T. said: You are quite right. Look at the advances that have been made in food production in recent years through fertilization techniques, cloning of species and plants, scientific gene modifications.... So these just permit and encourage more reproduction and more people. Personally, I think that population control methods should be considered now or very soon... and they should be made mandatory (yes, I know that now I sound like a Nazi... but I don't mean it in that way). Take a look around and the poorest people, in general, seem to have the biggest families? If population control is not addressed soon, then the apocalypse will likely occur just due to over population. I will be long dead by then but the kids and grandkids of some of you may be around to suffer that... Again... just my opinion... Modern first world economies mostly have negative population growth now. As the economies of the rest of the world catch up their population growth rate will start to decline. I concur that as technology improves the carrying capacity of the earth will increase. When the ability to crack crude oil to create kerosene was invented people stopped using whale oil for their lamps which saved the whales from extinction and switched to kerosene. Now it is much more efficient to use electricity and even better with more efficient low power LED lights and solar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyWay Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 On 2/10/2020 at 8:31 PM, OnMyWay said: I agree to a certain extent with most of this but not the capacity reached in 1960-1980 part. I think it is still in the future. Nature will continue to knock us back once in a while! On a lighter note, we watched a futuristic sci-fi movie, called SnowPiercer, the past few days and it has a lot of themes you mentioned here in it. We thought it was recent but I just looked it up, and it was from 2013! It has a few big names in it. I'm a bit cynical with movies like this, but I got some good laughs. Watch the beginning and the end if you can't stomach the whole thing. I was surprised that it has 7.1 * on IMDB! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/ Did anyone look this movie SnowPiercer up? So I just heard today that the director, Bong Joon Ho, won Best Director and Best Picture at the Academy Awards, for his movie Parasite! Four Academy Awards total. A Korean movie with English subs won Best Foreign Film then Best Picture! Not sure if that has been done before. I thought SnowPiercer was pretty hoaky, but I will now have to watch Parasite! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary D Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 5 hours ago, OnMyWay said: Did anyone look this movie SnowPiercer up? So I just heard today that the director, Bong Joon Ho, won Best Director and Best Picture at the Academy Awards, for his movie Parasite! Four Academy Awards total. A Korean movie with English subs won Best Foreign Film then Best Picture! Not sure if that has been done before. I thought SnowPiercer was pretty hoaky, but I will now have to watch Parasite! Perhaps a more appropriate film would be Soylent Green. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeoffH Posted February 11, 2020 Posted February 11, 2020 7 hours ago, earthdome said: Modern first world economies mostly have negative population growth now. As the economies of the rest of the world catch up their population growth rate will start to decline. I concur that as technology improves the carrying capacity of the earth will increase. It is true that as economies become more like first world economies that population growth tends to plateu. However along with that decrease in human population growth comes a consequent increase in energy usage and resource consumption comensurate with a typical first world economy. If you do some simple sums and extrapolate what would happen if just China and India were to have 'plateaud at first world birth rates and energy/resource' levels then the worlds use of a huge number of resources would be massively higher than it is now and the production of waste also. Even if you believe that the world has not yet passed a sustainable level (and that really depends upon the living standard desired at the sustainable level) then China and India living a fully western life style would definiely be past the sustainable point. Ergo we can't rely on the plateau of birth effect for large third world countries because it will happen too late in the picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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